The Megyn Kelly Show - Waltz Grilled at UN Hearing, Cornell Civil Rights Complaint, NBC's Autopen Scoop: AM Update 7/16

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Mike Waltz defends his record and battles criticism over Signalgate, Afghanistan policy, and UN reform plans during a contentious Senate hearing for UN Ambassador. Cornell University faces a federal civil rights complaint over allegations it rigged a faculty hiring process to exclude white male candidates - our interviews with evolutionary biologist Colin Wright and Executive General Counsel for America First Policy Institue Jessica Hart Steinmann. NBC News ridiculed for trying to equate Rep. Comer’s digital signature with Biden’s controversial use of the autopen on pardons and other legal documents.Herald Group: Learn more at https://GuardYourCard.comLean: Visit https://TakeLean.com & use code MK20 for 20% off

Good morning, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. It's Wednesday, July 16th, 2025. And this is your AM Update. It's absurd that the world's second largest economy is treated as a developing nation. Former National Security Adviser Mike Walz battles with Senate Democrats in a confirmation hearing to be Trump's UN ambassador while getting grilled over Signalgate and more. And if we look at these emails, it is clear there's discriminatory process in Cornell's hiring. America First Policy Institute filing a civil rights complaint against Cornell University, who it accuses of not wanting to hire whites. And NBC News' big scoop about the head of the House investigation into the Biden White House's use of the auto pen is widely mocked. All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM Update.

As President Trump is settling into his new administration, one of the top Democrats in Congress aiming to undermine the Trump agenda is Democrat Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. And according to our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, Senator Durbin has a new plan, a government takeover of your credit card. Today, Americans have thousands of choices in credit cards, but they say Senator Durbin's plan will result in less competition and less security,

which means more risk for your credit and your identity. You can learn more for yourself at guardyourcard.com and you could consider telling your senators to stop Dick Durbin's government takeover of your credit card before it's too late. Lawmakers grilling former national security advisor Mike Wallace on Tuesday in a Senate confirmation hearing for ambassador to the UN. Mr. Waltz nominated for the position in May following a string of controversies leading to his exit as the national security advisor. As NSA, Mr. Waltz inadvertently adding editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to a signal group chat discussing airstrike plans against

the Houthis. Many on the left demanding accountability, accusing Mr. Walz of mishandling classified information and demonstrating incompetence. The administration insisting no classified information was shared in that chat. Ultimately, the president standing by Mr. Walz, but opting to replace him as NSA, nominating Walz to be UN ambassador instead. Democrat Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Chris Coons of Delaware tearing into Mr. Walsh in regard to the Signalgate controversy. At a moment where our national security was clearly compromised, you denied, you deflected,

and then you demeaned and degraded those people who objectively told the truth and criticized your actions. Smearing people, attacking folks, singling them out, just furthers, compounds what I think is disqualifying about you for this position. It also to me just shows profound cowardice. I was hoping to hear from you that you had some sense of regret over sharing what was very sensitive, timely information

about a military strike on a commercially available app that's not, as we both know, the appropriate way to share such critical information. Senator, I think where we have a fundamental disagreement is there was no classified information on that chat. Walls' defenders on social media pushing back on Senator Booker's comments, highlighting the four bronze stars earned by Mr. Walls during his service as a Green Beret. Walls facing some friendly fire fire too, from fellow Republicans.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky asking about Walz's hawkish voting record as a congressman. In the summer of 2020, there was much discussion of President Trump that he intended to draw down troops in Afghanistan. You were serving on the Armed Services Committee at that time, and Liz Cheney and Jason Crowe put forward an amendment and with that amendment They attempted to circumscribe his power to assign troops and you supported that amendment I guess it just worries me that you come more from the Liz Cheney wing of the party than the Donald Trump wing of the party Senator I am squarely with the president have been with him in every single election I participated in and and and him with me

in terms of the limits on hard power. I can tell you for certain that people who hate war the most are the people that have to go fight them and die from them. I have many of them with me and I never want to attend another funeral and I certainly support the president's diplomacy first as I know you do approach as we just saw in the Middle East his commercial diplomacy that we're seeing around the world and we'll do everything I can if confirmed as ambassador of the United Nation to keep us out of wars and to end conflicts. Mr. Walls also weighing in on how he would confront

anti-Semitism at the UN, condemn anti-Israel bias, and lay the blame on Hamas for perpetuating the current conflict in Gaza. If I could probably spend the rest of this hearing, sadly, highlighting the anti-Semitic activities, one aspect of which is known as Article 7 in the Human Rights Council, that Israel is the only nation with a standing mandate to highlight its quote human rights abuses every single meeting and it's been going on for decades. I mentioned the number of resolutions just this year. We're on track for that same type of disparity in 2025. And I think we have to take a step back and address and work with both Israel and work with our allies on why this continues to happen.

I understand the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but I will say over and over again, if Hamas would lay down their arms, if they would surrender, if they would stop sacrificing their own people, the fighting would stop today. And I am confident in working with Israel in that regard. Mr. Wallace laying out his vision for the role on Tuesday, pledging to counter Chinese influence and usher in Doge-style reforms to the UN if confirmed. We must press the Security Council on length, cost, clear end states, and focusing on peacekeeping, not nation building.

Countering China is critical. It's absurd that the world's second largest economy is treated as a developing nation in most UN agencies that gives China favorable status. America must have a strong voice. And if confirmed, I'll work with Secretary Rubio to challenge this influence. The US pays more than 183 countries combined. Meanwhile, 28

countries contribute just $37,000 and $5,000 to peacekeeping. The U.N. has ballooned to over 80 agencies with overlapping missions that waste resources and have confirmed outpush for transparency, like what we're seeing in the Secretary General's U.N. 80 reform plan calling for a 20% staff cut. It's worth remembering that despite the cuts, the U.S. is by far the most generous nation in the world. Mr. Wallace is likely to be confirmed, though the vote is not yet scheduled. Coming up, America First Policy Institute filing a civil rights complaint against Cornell University, accusing it of refusing to hire white people.

And NBC News mocked over a report attempting to paint a lead auto pen investigator as a hypocrite. Celebrate Independence Day with an epic July 4th sale. Stock up on supplements from BrickHouseNutrition.com and save big. 25% off everything with code FIREWORKS25. You can get Lean, their number one weight loss supplement packed with natural, studied ingredients, no injections, just real results they say

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Use Fireworks 25 for 25% off. Go big this 4th of July. BrickHouseNutrition.com. Stock up now. Cornell University facing a civil rights complaint and possibly a lawsuit over what whistleblowers say was an illegal hiring scheme designed to exclude white men from applying for an open teaching position. An internal email from December 2020, obtained by the America First Policy Institute, revealing

the school bypassed its own open search process in favor of quietly reaching out to a hand-picked list of so-called diversity candidates to fill a faculty position. Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright says he never had the chance to apply for the job, not because he was unqualified, but because he was disqualified simply for being a white male. Wright tells us he had strong credentials for the position with a superior publication record, better than the candidate who ultimately got the job, but because the search was kept hidden, he never had the chance to even apply. And so while I was in grad school, I was probably published more than any grad student that I knew of.

I had about 25 peer reviewed publications by the time I graduated. I pursued two different PhD topics side by side in case one didn't work out, but they ended up both working out pretty well. different PhD topics side by side in case one didn't work out, but they both working out pretty well. The median number of papers like an average graduate student has while they're in academia is actually zero. The person who ended up getting the job, our CVs aligned on a pure publication by publication basis. Mine exceeded her CVs. There's no saying if I would have definitely got an interview, but I never got the opportunity to even apply to even enter the pool of applicants to compete for this job. And that's the main gist of my complaint where I would have loved to have

actually competed based on merit for the position. In late June, AFPI filing a civil rights complaint alleging systemic discrimination in hiring, scholarship, and faculty policies, all driven by what it argues are illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates. We spoke to Executive General Counsel for AFPI Jessica Hart Steinman, who says Cornell did not just violate basic fairness, it violated federal law. And if we look at these emails, it is clear there's discriminatory process in Cornell's hiring.

The first email from 2020 talks about, and it really outlines how Cornell pre-selected their candidates, not by competition and merit, but pre-picked certain diversity candidates. Here they even say they're, quote, hoped for diversity hire and, quote, this process is, quote, a little out of the ordinary. And again, they explicitly talk about in their email how they're going to invite just one person and they don't want to use the typical search process that gets them, you know, competition. Cornell publicly responding to the complaint in a statement reading in part, in thousands of hiring decisions

in hundreds of departments and units, misunderstandings of policies can occur. The university does not tolerate unlawful discrimination in hiring or any other aspect of any university program or practice. Steinman rejects that claim. We can see definitively in this email, it was not a mere misunderstanding. This was a detailed process. It steps out line by line, step by step, how they should hire somebody

by going around the normal process just to get their handpicked diversity candidate. You can see from the emails, this was a step bystep process that was carefully met on by, it talks about here specifically, the Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion Met, the Associate Vice Provost, another Vice Provost in the Office of Faculty, Department and Diversity. So again, this was all run under the Provost's office there.

And it's clear in here, there were multiple emails from this, there were meetings from this, there were calls from this. So, you know, this is very in sharp congruence to what Cornell had said that this was a mere misunderstanding of a policy. LESLIE KENDRICK-ROSENZWEIG-STIMON says Cornell's discriminatory policies go beyond the hiring policy for this one position, pointing to another email from two years later showing Cornell requiring diversity statements from applicants using those responses to filter out candidates who don't align with Cornell's ideology. The second email we've sent in is an email that talks about how they have pre-filtered to find the diversity candidate.

So here they asked everyone applying to send in a D&I statement. From those, they will use that to filter out who they don't want, filter out who does not meet their identity politics. Here they again go through the whole email and they say they've dropped just one candidate out of the 74 that quote,

the D&I statement was so seriously and unambiguously weak. And again, here, what they're doing is that they're using a statement to pick out someone that doesn't agree with their politics. They would not be able to get federal funding if they asked somebody's specific political views. And so they're not just coming out and saying, how did you vote in the election?

Or, do you believe in this X, Y, and Z? They're, you know, having it under this cloud of deception because they're not coming out and just blatantly asking somebody, you know, are you a Democrat? Are you a Republican? They instead are putting it and trying to be able to read between the lines. And then, but using that as again, like that litmus test. AFPI filing a civil rights complaint with four federal agencies, the DOJ, the Department of Education, HHS, and the EEOC. The Trump administration making it clear discriminatory policies will not be tolerated and federal funding is on the line.

More here from Steinman. Cornell University in 2024 received $784 million in federal research funding. On top of that, their medical school has received over $400 million in grant funding from NIH alone. So again, Cornell is receiving millions, if not billions of federal funding, and then turning around and using that funding in discriminatory practices that the American taxpayers

are not gonna agree with and rightly are unconstitutional. Cornell is no exception to the rule. So we know the federal government is going to look into these and that's why we sent our complaint in. The Trump administration has been explicit that we will not stand up for discrimination in our higher education facilities, especially those that receive federal funding like Cornell.

This week, the EEOC confirming that evidence is being collected relating to the charge of discrimination. Steinmetz saying her group, AFPI, is considering legal options on behalf of Colin Wright. Wright believes outside pressure is necessary to force reforms within higher education. I think branches of Cornell who are studying these types of policies, I don't think they would reform from within. I think it is probably going to take court cases like the one I'm hoping to bring against them, where they will specifically not engage in these types of practices because they're racially discriminatory and they are unconstitutional and they will be forced to pay

damages to the people that these policies are inflicting on people. I hope that my suit, I hope other people would join in these types of suits as well in order just to draw a firm line saying that this is an unacceptable behavior. You just flip the races around, everyone on the left would suddenly see how terrible this is and there's just no reason why just changing the skin color changes the moral calculus at all in this type of thing. And I think hopefully we can get to people across the political spectrum to see how bad these things are and hopefully academia will perform with this sort of outside pressure

that I think it needs. NBC News widely mocked on Tuesday for running a piece headlined, quote, lead investigator into Biden's use of an auto pen signed letters with a digital signature. Chairman of the Oversight Committee, Congressman James Comer, investigating the controversial and widespread use of the auto pen within the Biden White House, probing whether it was part of a potentially criminal cover-up of Mr. Biden's mental decline. Just this week, the New York Times reporting President Biden did not personally sign off on every name granted clemency in the waning days of his administration. NBC reporting, quote, documents show that some of the letters and subpoena notices Mr. Comer has sent out in connection to his investigation have been signed using a digital signature,

not written by the congressman himself. Many on social media quick to mock this scoop as a desperate attempt to equate a routine digital signature with the use of an auto pen for potentially unauthorized presidential pardons. Co-founder of the Federalist, Sean Davis, posting on X, quote, imagine being so stupid and corrupt as to write this article and think it's even remotely analogous to a cabal of White House staffers taking advantage of a president with dementia and using his mental infirmity as an excuse to commandeer the powers

of the presidency. The report including this quote from the congressman last month on Newsmax. Presidents use the auto pen, just like I use an auto pen or Jim Jordan or anyone else in Congress, to sign correspondence to the massive amounts of messages that you get. But no one uses an auto pen for legal documents. I can't use an auto pen to sign subpoenas. That's my legal document, subpoenas. I have to fly back to Washington DC

just to sign one piece of paper. The article also containing a link to a photograph of one subpoena sent in connection to the investigation appearing to show an inked signature from Congressman Comer. Got you there! Congressman Comer posting a photo of NBC reporter Ryan Nobles, edited with clown makeup with the caption, quote, There's still time to delete this, Ryan. Yes, Ryan, save yourself. And that'll do it for your AM Update. I'm Megan Kelly. Join me back here for The Megan Kelly Show, live at Sirius XMM Triumph Channel 111 at noon east, on youtube.com slash Megyn

Kelly, and on all podcast platforms.